The SB‑OUN Kupiak group robbed and burned Polish farms and murdered 17 Poles. „In May 1944 he and his gang attacked the village of Kupcze. They killed three Poles there: Włodzimierz Sołtys, Eugeniusz Kotowski and Eugeniusz Sołtys, and then plundered their property. Smag's witness, a former member of Kupiak's militia testified: «From Pobużany we went to the village of Kupcze, where we arrived at dusk. We stopped near this village and our warlord ‹› adhesive announced that we were to carry out an action in the village – to kill some Poles. He divided us into several groups and assigned a task to each of them. Kupiak himself, me and a few more went to murder one family, and the rest were sent by Kupiak to another cottage. Our group, along with Kupiak, surrounded one of the huts, which Kupiak and the others broke into, and I stayed outside. After a while, I heard shots and I was called inside. When I entered I saw two corpses lying on the floor by the light of a gas lamp. They handed me a sack full of looted belongings and ordered me to take it to a cart. Kupiak, ‹Pylup› [Dust] (Ivanov) and other bandits also brought bags full of looted belongings. Another group, after the murder and plunder, also brought sacks with looted belongings and we all went to the village of Nowosiółki. On the way back from the conversation with Kupiak, I understood that the people in the village had been murdered because they were Poles». Here is the testimony of the second witness, Jan Maksimov, regarding the murder in the village of Kupcze: «I lived in Kupcze with my wife and two underage children. At that time, the hut of my uncle, i.e. my mother's brother, Włodzimierz Sołtys, burned down, who with his daughter Katarzyna and her husband Eugeniusz Kotowski and four‑year‑old granddaughter were left without an apartment. I let them live in my newly built cottage, they were all Poles. In mid–May 1944, around midnight, I heard a terrible pounding on the outside door. Through the window, I saw several armed men. As I opened the door, an armed bandit came in and ordered me to hand over the keys to my new shack. He took the given keys and left. After a while I heard the sounds of shots coming from there. Then I heard a great buzz and movement in the yard, and then everything went quiet. In the morning I went to my cottage and on the floor in the room and in the kitchen I saw the corpses of the Sołtys and Kotowski. All of this family's property was stolen»”.

source: Żurek Stanisław, „Calendar of the genocide – May 1944”; in: portal: Volhynia — web page: wolyn.org [accessible: 2021.02.04]

source: Szeremeta Bronisław, „Warlord - his crimes and false memories”, in: Wrocław, 2000 — web page: www.nawolyniu.pl [accessible: 2022.04.06]